IPTV networks need to be highly reliable. One of the most error-prone parts of the network is the local area network (LAN), where video/IP, voice/IP and data packets are routed to various equipment units. One LAN is the home network (HN), in a private house. In particular, the video packets travel throughout the house to terminate on set-top-boxes (STBs) to be rendered into video images. The video packets are prone to significant error and loss that results in subsequent display impairments observed by the viewer.
With recent increases in network bandwidth, the ease of interconnectedness of users through the global Internet, and the increasing volume of digital data processed by business and consumer users, the demands for network-based transfer via packets are ever growing. In particular, home users desire to transfer packets, over their home viewer networks of ever higher bandwidths, and at ever longer distances.
Such data transfer paths not only experience high bottleneck bandwidths and round-trip delays due to geographical distance, but they also experience periods of packet losses, and variable delays due to the media itself, such as a data loss in a wireless home viewing network.